October 2004, a contract was signed with Haugesund-based Coast Air, who would operate Jetstream 31 aircraft between Skien and Bergen. The owner of Coast Air, Kystfly, also bought 20% of Vildanden. Coast Air had previously operated routes from Skien to Western Norway, but had withdrawn in 1999. Following the announcement from Vildanden and Coast Air, the municipality decided to not close the airport, and cover the estimated NOK 300,000 annual deficit, as well as upgrade the control tower for NOK 700,000. The airport had been closed since 2002, following the increased domestic and international traffic from near-by Sandefjord Airport, Torp. Initial service would have 16 weekly departures to Bergen Airport, Flesland. The main market segment is the offshore petroleum industry, and the departure times were designed to mesh with helicopter routes to offshore installations. The company estimated that one-quarter of travellers would be people commuting to the North Sea. Norsk Hydro, who have a lot of employees in the Grenland area, stated that they could not start using Vildanden because they had an agreement with SAS Braathens' services from Sandefjord. The first scheduled service flew on 24 January 2005, carrying eight passengers. This first month, 972 passengers took the plane, and Vildanden announced that they would try to also start a route to Stavanger Airport, Sola, as well as potentially to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. DAT in, Coast Air out On 19 April, a new Jetstream 32 aircraft was taken into service. This allowed capacity to increase from 12 to 19 passengers, and at the same time travel time was reduced from 47 to 39 minutes. By September, the most popular departures were being booked full, and Vildanden asked Coast Air for a larger aircraft, with about 30 seats. In addition to allowing more passengers, larger planes would give higher comfort, and allow a more flexible ticket pricing scheme. An agreement with Danish Air Transport (DAT) to operate an ATR 42, with a capacity of 48 seats, was signed in mid-October. To be able to breach the agreement with Coast Air—who still had a wet leasing contract, but were not able to put into operation a larger aircraft—the company Skien Lufttransport AS was created, and it purchased all the revenue and passenger rights from Vildanden. At the same time, it became the legal counterpart for DAT. The new aircraft was put into service on 31 October, branded with the Vildanden logo.